WA's bushfire-proof housing project that's designed to be burnt

Reporter

Hollingworth House at Point Henry, Bremer Bay, Western Australia. Photo: Andrew Halsall

Ian Weir isn't the first West Australian ever to buy a plot of bushland and build a cabin or two. But he might be the first who is actively hoping his buildings get hit by the full force of a bushfire.

Dr Weir, a research architect at the Queensland University of Technology, is pioneering a new idea in bushfire-proof building design – one aimed at allowing residents to ignore the traditional advice handed out by fire authorities about how best to protect property.

He is building two experimental structures on a bushland plot on the Point Henry Peninsula, south of Bremer Bay and nestled among thousands of hectares of bushland.

The region – coincidently where Dr Weir also grew up - was hit by an out-of-control bushfire in December 2012, during which homes on the peninsula were declared 'undefendable' by fire officials.

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His prototype buildings are designed to withstand the full fury of the "flame zone" as a bushfire passes by.

"This is really, for a lot of people, a mind-bending proposition – they're actually designed to be burnt," he said. In fact, from an aesthetic point of view, he says he won't consider his buildings fully complete until they have acquired the charred patina left behind by a bushfire.

The interior of Hollingworth House. Photo: Andrew Halsall

Techniques include constructing buildings on stilts, using fire-resistant concrete slabs; covering windows with shutters to keep heat and flames out; and partitioning roof spaces to individually insulate different areas of the structure.

These features also help with other, more everyday considerations, such as heat insulation and energy efficiency. But the idea, Dr Weir explains, is to design these everyday features in such a way that the building defends itself in the event that a bushfire arrives.

That means there is no need to stay and defend properties, no need for local firefighters to risk their lives defending the building, and – most controversially – no need to follow the standard advice about clearing nearby vegetation.

"I'm fundamentally not interested in clearing vegetation just to achieve bushfire safety, because there are a lot of problems with that approach other than just taking away the nice trees. There's no actual guarantee that that will actually protect your house," he said.

It's an attitude that has, perhaps understandably, provoked condemnation from fire authorities. The official advice remains to minimise risk to properties by clearing nearby vegetation.

But Dr Weir says that what he calls the "mantra" of vegetation clearing is part of a "top-down" culture that discourages homeowners from assessing the situation and then preparing for the worst by designing the right kind of house.

"There's absolutely no guarantee that a fire and emergency services vehicle is actually going to come to your property. So why not design the house so that it can just do it's own job, regardless of whether somebody comes or not?" Dr Weir said.

"And naturally we're talking about evacuating early and not having anyone risk their lives to protect a property. That's an area where I'm happy to work with local authorities."

Bushfire-proof buildings are not a new idea, of course. In the 1970s, Sydney-based architect Glenn Murcutt was designing homes in the Blue Mountains with inbuilt water ponds that have stood the test of numerous fires.

As more traditional homes are destroyed by fire, architecture critic Philip Drew has argued that they need to be replaced with entirely bushfire-proof communities. "To fail to do so is madness in a time of climate change," he wrote.That madness, he said, is "mandated by cultural habit and a delusional longing for the familiar".

Yet bushfire-proof houses still need to look and feel like houses, Dr Weir said. "Designing for daily patterns of use is where we really have to go with bushfire design in this country. Architects have to create simple houses that work," he said.

That's why he rejects "bunkeresque" building designs, with tiny windows and huge expanses of bare rammed earth. In fact, the whole idea of bushfire bunkers can be counterproductive, he said.

"Of course there have been some great survival stories from Black Saturday of people retreating to their bunkers. But to design just a standard off-the-shelf house in a really exposed bushfire site and then just whack a bunker in out the back, that's just not really intelligent thinking because in that time of emergency – and that could be 20 years' time – who knows if that bunker's going to work?"

The two cabins that Dr Weir is building in on Point Henry peninsula cost around $50,000 and $150,000, for small structures of just 25 and 60 square metres, respectively.

But he hopes that the principles can be scaled up to create houses that can be used in fire zones all over the world.

"The fundamental issue is that there is no guarantee that somebody will go and protect your property. People should really understand the risk themselves and take responsibility for it."

11 comments so far

Great idea - here's hoping if his current designs don't work out he keeps at it.

The major question will of course be: How well-proven do they need to be before insurance will be allowed, when vegetation is not cleared? and if insurance was not available, would you still build that house and trust it so fully to work?

Commenter

Raida

Location

chewing salty razors

Date and time

October 29, 2013, 6:44AM

people will go back to straw if they arent careful.Course then houses wpould be cheap as dirt ,mud really ,even with straw roofs.Naturally governbment in its concerns for standard and poor would never allow that building code.Imagine people able to just knock up their own house in a few weeks with some hay and mud bricks,straw thatching and compacted earth floors.Wouldnt do, no not at all.

Commenter

Kane

Date and time

October 29, 2013, 9:46AM

Mud is the ultimate fire-proof construction material. Good insulator, too

Commenter

Boganomics

Date and time

October 29, 2013, 12:57PM

@Kane. The design codes exist to protect people from their own stupidity. Without them, there would undoubtedly be shortcuts taken due to laziness or penny pinching, shortcuts that risk life or public health. So if you really want to live in a straw and mud house, then the liberal in me says you should be able to do so, but counter that with the acceptance of potential legal claims for damages when someone is injured or impacted by your blissful ignorance.

Commenter

Bio Logical

Location

Perth

Date and time

October 29, 2013, 3:02PM

"People should really understand the risk themselves and take responsibility for it"

Not in this country. Now come to the Nanny, it's time to change your nappy.

Commenter

expat

Date and time

October 29, 2013, 7:04AM

'Techniques include constructing buildings on stilts, using fire-resistant concrete slabs"

Can someone help me with my ignorance/ill-informed logic. I am not an engineer or architect and am curious as to why these houses are built on stilts. From my very likely flawed logic, I would have thought the below floor gap would give the fire the opportunity to get under the building, the heat differential would (likely?) crack the slab and potentially allow the fire to get into the internal structure/contents of the house. Why not build with concrete slabs directly on the ground.

Commenter

Sacre bleu

Date and time

October 29, 2013, 8:53AM

My best guess: Burning or unburnt material can pass under the house and continue moving, rather than builiding up against the side of the structure.

Commenter

DM

Location

Perth

Date and time

October 29, 2013, 11:38AM

"But Dr Weir says that what he calls the “mantra” of vegetation clearing is part of a “top-down” culture that discourages homeowners from assessing the situation and then preparing for the worst by designing the right kind of house."

This smacks of the same sort of greenie BS that contributed to the huge property and life loss in the Victorian bushfires. The easiest, simplest and cheapest way for homeowners to fireproof their home is to remove combustibles from around their home that is too close and poses too much of a risk. Fire authorities - those people who actually know a thing or two about bushfires as opposed to an architect - arent advocating clear felling your entire bush block, just removing the high-risk vegetation and items that make it easy for fire to make the jump to your dwelling. Dr Weir might be rolling in cash to build one of these sorts of houses but for most people the cost is simply too far out of reach and the reality is, these bushfire prone areas are inhabited with the housing stock that exists in the here and the now.

Commenter

Troll No. 47

Date and time

October 29, 2013, 9:32AM

The screen name says it all, so I'll be brief, Re: "This smacks of the same sort of greenie BS that contributed to the huge property and life loss in the Victorian bushfires". It's designed cheap, to be burnt but protect the insides, and requires no-one to stay and defend the property. Ergo, it should save lives and money.

Commenter

Misha

Location

Tumbi Umbi

Date and time

October 29, 2013, 12:09PM

The costs quoted seem comparable to standard construction - a pretty good achievement given that they are prototypes. I think your mistaking "greenie BS" for inaction in general on the behalf of governments at all levels and all parties, and of course the elephant in the room, peoples desire to live as closely as possible to the natural surrounds, and the last minute nature of peoples fire plans. If the fire is at your doorstep it is too late to be cleaning out your gutters.

These designs take both the people factors and the government factors out of the equation, the house and its contents will survive regardless of whether or not vegetation has been cleared, or back burning has been done.